Idealism

<p>A lot of my favorite photos, both mine and others', have some balance or tension between Idealism and the mundane, between the Universal and the more personal or individual. A grand idea can be expressed in very earthy terms. And a very personal feeling can be depicted or expressed in such a way as to become vastly significant, greater than the particular feeling itself but just as moving to anyone who sees it.</p>

<p>Symbolism, especially, seems to help here. But it's more.</p>

<p>A simply iconic image can leave me cold. I use "iconic" religiously/culturally/secularly. Often, in our photos, we represent or express something iconically, something readily recognized that seems to have great meaning and import. Gestures can do this, facial expressions, crosses, mountains. Shooting someone from below, backed by the sky and silhouetted, this sort of perspective often will have an iconic, a larger than life, feel. If the photographer will then find a way to bring it back down to earth, make it his own, make it personal for himself and for me, I will usually experience a deeper response.</p>

<p>Iconic contrasts with fleeting. That kind of contrast might occur when a strong sense of the moment offsets an ideal or formal composition or structure, when an individual human being experiences a deeply personal moment in such a way that I feel put in touch with the world, feeling as if everyone has felt that way at one time or another. </p>

<p>True or pure Ideals, for me, seem unattainable, though others have expressed a desire for them and a belief they may come. Nevertheless Ideals can play a key role in my visual world. My language of Ideals is probably more fluent and developed than the language for what's personal. Thus the tendency to use the more familiar language of symbols, Ideals, the grandness of gesture and/or expression . . . the smile, the tear, the blowing hair, the majestic landscape, the awesome sunset. For me, though, the purer the Ideal, the grander the gesture in and of itself, often the hollower the feeling. So when that hollowness of awesome architecture, the empty palace, gets filled with furniture and pictures, color and movement, individuals, mess, and the chance for mistakes, the intensity of my feelings and response seems to grow.</p>

<p>Have you thought about Ideals in your own work and in the work you like? What role, if any, do they seem to be playing?</p>

 

<p><strong><em>Fred: Beautiful thinking, comprehensively written.</em></strong></p>

<p>My ideals outline the realms in which I try to operate photographically and otherwise. When my photography slides outside those ideals (heavily symbolic, purely scenic, purely graphic, "street") I experience the guilt I know as <strong>"Cheap Shot."</strong></p>

<p>I'm in New Mexico: staggering scenery scattered liberally with the crosses you mentioned, ancient buildings, other cultural phenomena. Alcohol plays its role in a culturally leveraged, corrosive way here, as has America's most base mall/mcmansion culture along with pervasive government employment (60%). Most days feature skys that want to force their way into images, as well as cartoon-gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. Who could completely avoid Cheap Shots? I usually refrain (dodging strong images daily), but not always. Sometimes I chase after them. Let him without sin cast the first stone, eh?</p>

<p>I want to photograph a lawyer (won't ask him just yet). I distrust him...a coiled snake...emotionally expressive, on my wave-length various ways... am I mesmerized? The snake factor that I sense/fear is itself something I'd like to toy with photographically. That attraction offers a glimpse of one of my <strong>ideals</strong>.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I don't think of ideals more than I think of aesthetic aspects of a picture, like the rule of thirds or golden ratio. If I use them, I usually do so subconsciously, and probably revert to only the most generally recognized ones, like a frog's perspective, rusted surface, a missing finger. There are hundreds, but they are never pivotal to images; images centered around an iconic subject only for the reason of it being iconic don't seem to be usable for anything other than practical purposes today.</p>

<p>Ideals, icons, and symbols have been used, re-used and, most importantly, re-interpreted in the modern art. There were so many people, animals and things hanged on the cross that using it anywhere in an image may mean any of religious/ridiculous/abusive/boring; whiteness has been used not only for "the good", but also for the opposite; the same with blackness. A tiger is no longer scary, we are used to being cheated with perspective tricks, and a nude does no longer attract popular attention unless it depicts the most private parts ruthlessly exposed.</p>

<p>This is neither right or wrong, but that's a fact. Trying to come up with less popular ideals or icons, obviously heavily depending on the level of erudition of the receiver, might be entertaining to some; not to me. In photography, I'm trying to capture a snapshot of my volatile stream of consciousness, and that's what <i>I</i> find entertaining. My gut feeling, the play of light, the structure of lines, the momentary posture. Ideals are only aesthetic devices here; might use them, might not; might not know I use them, and only find them later... a photograph is composed of so many elements, and that's so great about photography.</p>

 

<p>"Ah, but a man's reach should <em>exceed his grasp</em> , or what's a heaven for?”<br>

--- Robert Browning</p>

<p> I agree that Ideals are largely unattainable, but that very quality serves a purpose in the sense that it lengthens our reach. They bring to mind caveats about lights to a moth, or the Sun to Icarus, too. There are personal internecine ideals, like a <em>manifesto</em> , and visual ideals, like icons, or iconic depictions.</p>

<p> Ideals of both kinds are a part of my photography. Visually, sometimes in the sense that Minor White called "not only photographing things for what they are, but for what else they are." The best of cold-blooded objective pictures often cross the line into formal idealism. Sometimes, in circumstances where my control is very limited, photographs crystallize themselves that way, specially when working fast, beyond the edge of my horizons.</p>

<p>If ideals are too removed from reality, yes, they get sentimentally saccharine, or laughably lofty. Some manage to work, specially with propagandist photography, like 1920's Russian or 30's FSA, George Bush in a flight jacket on an aircraft carrier, etc., but it's thin ice to march on. Iconic pictures tend to be powerful, monosyllabic, often sententious and have a brief attention span expiration date.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>It's an interesting topic, Fred, and well launched by you.<br /><br />I do seem to be developing a meter in my brain that's starting to better gauge these things in what I see or photograph. That meter operates in two dimensions. In one dimension it swings between "icon/ideal" and "mundane" ... and in the other dimension it swings between "sincere" and "affectation."<br /><br />By "sincere," I suppose that I mean "honestly come by." And many contextual cues are needed to know which is which. <br /><br />I'll key off of John's southwestness, here, just for fun. It's the difference between someone who wears a cowboy hat because it keeps the sun and the snow off, and someone who wears a cowboy hat because it's what one <em>does.</em> Some photographs (or subjects) are indeed all hat, no cowboy.<br /><br />In my hunting dog stuff, I get lots of compliments from dog owners when they see the iconic shots that feature the dog from an heroic-pose-creating angle, or that show the dog's steely gaze and intensity while working game. Of course! That's how their owners think of their dogs (or would like to).<br /><br />But the shots that really seem to get talked about are the ones with a touch of something else. Even with puppy portraiture, where I'm trying to catch an earnest, thoughtful face that shows lots of promise and intelligence (the <em>ideal</em> that the breeders are hoping to present to people paying thousands for a piece of their bloodline), a little touch can make for a much more interesting image... for <em>me</em>. If you'll indulge me, <strong><a href="../photo/8653000">here's one shot</a></strong>. And <strong><a href="../photo/8658888&size=lg">here's another</a></strong> from the same session. The shots are similar in purpose and format, but the second pup's runny nose <em>entirely</em> changes things. For the better, I think. The breeder didn't get it, but I've decided that doesn't matter to me. I'm now looking for those little things, and indeed thinking about how to introduce them into work on purpose, with foresight, and as a deliberate way to communicate a point of view.<br /><br />Of course, I'll still shoot heroic dog portraits. Gotta pay for new lenses <em>somehow</em>.</p>

<p><strong>John--</strong></p>

<p>The snake factor makes so much sense given the guilt you speak of at the outset and the attraction by way of distrust you end with. That snake, of course, is a great symbol you've coiled around your thoughts on the matter.</p>

<p>As I understand you, you are wary of the Ideal shot (the cheap shot) and aware of your own Ideals, which seem to help motivate what and how you choose to photograph. I can relate to that. Photographing what you fear / photographing your fears (there's a significant distinction and I'm guessing that, but also asking whether, there's a little bit of both going into your desire to photograph the lawyer).</p>

<p>You mention the draw for yourself toward the cheap shot, and I get a little lost in whether the attraction is the cheap shot (because it's easy) or the Ideal (the Ideal sky for example, because it's awesome or pretty or it takes your breath away in the moment) or both. In my own case, I'm often drawn to and moved by the Ideal when I can either undermine it in some way or personalize or individualize it. So, for instance, I've always been drawn to Magritte's use of the blue sky, Hosoe's use of a rose, Scorcese's use of crosses, John Ford's use of graves and cemeteries, because they use those Ideals as starting points and not as goals. They take a universally identifiable symbol and make them personally searing.</p>

<p><strong>Adam--</strong></p>

<p>Thanks for talking about your "volatile stream of consciousness." It nicely describes that sense of happenstance, of accidental occurrence, gut reaction, in the moment.</p>

<p>For me Ideals are aesthetic devices similar to light, lines, and posture, Ideals just being a bit less tangible. Ideals can distract from the moment and the gut, but so can light and focus. It's not necessarily that I am considering Ideals overtly when I shoot, but I'm not sure I can actually avoid them, stream of consciousness or not. I think certain symbols, icons, and Ideals are culturally embedded in us. To a certain extent, it's how we come to see the world, how we express and communicate it.</p>

<p>I hope you don't mind my using two of your own photos as examples. Night Scene in a Park (group of young people, guy with camera, bag on ground, empty benches strongly lit, rows of trees) seems momentary, as if it's a wave in your stream of consciousness, earthy, real. At the same time, the camera and the strong lighting on the empty benches take on, for me, a larger than life role. That sort of tension appeals to me. Fireworks in Rimini (your most recent submission) seems more iconic, though not necessarily for its own sake. Couple from behind with fireworks exploding. That reaches out and grabs us as utterly familiar and significant. Of course there is counterpoint to that in the quiet of the empty beach chairs casting long shadows on the sand. I'm not suggesting that any of that came to mind in a scene that may well have caught your eye and imagination for any number of reasons, from a desire to see if you could expose well for fireworks to a fleeting connection to the shadows or a moment of comfort in the warmth of the couple. Nevertheless, I'm not sure the universality and iconography of this particular scene can be escaped by either photographer or viewer.</p>

<p><strong>Luis--</strong></p>

<p>Yes, indeed. To broaden our reach and also to hone our vision. In starting this thread, I had in mind the train wreck of a post from yesterday, moved to the Casual Conversations forum and subsequently closed, that started off with a photographer's "rules" for his own (and debatably others') search for photographic purity. The venom expressed by most responders toward such a methodology said more about most everyone else than about the poor, writing-challenged OP. Responders took the quest for an Ideal to be <em>only</em> about limits rather than about the expansiveness that attending to an Ideal and trying to meet it can offer. This was an ideal of process. I don't think a lot of people realize that the notion of complete spontaneity, "doing my own thing," or "thinking is not photographing" can actually be quite limiting in itself.</p>

<p><strong>Matt--</strong></p>

<p>I like your distinction between "sincere" and "affectation." I'm pretty sure I know what you mean, but I want to say that I do think that affectation can be quite sincere and honestly come by. Theater and theatricality can be very affected, artificial, plastic, but also come from a very honest and genuine place, reaching for deep truths. It might just be semantics but I wonder if "genuine/disingenuous" would work to express what you're considering. I think we are on the same track because you mention the importance of contextual clues and that, I think, is key. Those contextual clues can be consciously and intentionally put into or used in a photo or they may come from some external source. I am often moved when a contextual clue leads me to a deeper or alternative understanding of something I didn't quite get before the clue sank in.</p>

<p>To move the cowboy photograph one step further, there might also be the exposing of or playing off the person who wears the cowboy hat because it's what one <em>does</em> that can reveal even that truth, the fact of personas, the pointing to the mask as mask and perhaps even the unmasking. That might require some affect in order to move beyond or through it.</p>

<p>A touch of something else, yes. Those little things that act as counterpoints to the Ideal. Thanks for your two photos. They illustrate your points well and I'm with you on the second one.</p>

<p>Pictures of dogs are a good choice, ,mostly mundane, four legged (pant pant) leg scratching critters. One of the most common subjects to pose for us...will work for a cookie! To get a dog to be more 'heroic" if not iconic is a matter of deciding to approach a canine as a symbol of the breed.</p>

<p>I don't know if I caught the regal spirit of my lovable Shepherd, but I set out to make him a little bit "heroic."</p>

<p>Maybe,not as powerful as Michaelangelo's David statue in Florence to shoot real high, Fred....(I didn't have any choice slabs of quarried marble to work with that particular day :-()... ) But seriously, working in a two dimensional medium has its limitations. Sometimes I wish I <strong>could</strong> sculpt. And maybe leave immortal work behind that rises to my ideals as I dream them. Much chance..my gifts are just shoot 'n hope mostly... gs</p><div></div>

<p>[Fred G wrote:] "I don't think a lot of people realize that the notion of complete spontaneity, "doing my own thing," or "thinking is not photographing" can actually be quite limiting in itself."</p>

<p> Almost anything can be/is liberating, limiting or both. It depends on how one looks at it.</p>

<p>"Without form there are no limits." (Doczi).</p>

<p>In my case, while I enter a meditative state while engaged in the act of photographing, thinking (and notes, drawings, scouting) precedes and follows it. Is it spontaneous? Somewhat, in the sense that if I look at the end result and my drawings & notes, I see fragments of continuity, but not slavishness in any sense of the word. That <em>is</em> how I work. This is not by design, nor chance, but via decades of experience.</p>

<p> I'd like to make this clear: I do not think that the way I do things is <em>the one true way, the best way </em> for anyone else<em>, </em> or that any other way is not photography.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Fred as usual it is an interesting subject you upload and very well worded.</p>

<p>I know one thing, when I go shooting, I look to find and have the components of aesthetic, light and other photographic needs, but with it that something elusive that is called creativity, The transcend.</p>

<p>It is hard (to say the least) to attain, but to get close to it ,in my gut feelings, is to walk toward the ideal of personal individual truth that has that little something different that will communicate to the others.</p>

<p>Matt dogs example is a good one because not all people are attached and love animals, pets etc. If his special small change will touch a viewer which is not a dog breeder, and/ or dogs lover, he has achieved that something that transcends the mundane.</p>

<p>Symbolism, icons, are part of our wide cultures, enhanced by our easier accessibility to information and knowledge, to art forms and history, general as well as art/ photography development . I think that creating is an inner need to add something a bit different to what was already done</p>

<p>"They take a universally identifiable symbol and make them personally searing"....</p>

<p>Is a good short summary of the subject. I hope I make sense. ( not an easy subject for a foreign language ;-))</p>

<p><em>"...drawn to and moved by the Ideal when I can either <strong>undermine </strong>...or personalize ... I've always been drawn to Magritte's use of the blue sky, Hosoe's use of a rose, Scorcese's use of crosses, John Ford's use of graves and cemeteries"</em> <strong> Fred G</strong><br>

<strong></strong> <br>

Yes. <strong>That "undermine" is crucial</strong>. The clouds here are far better than anything Stieglitz ever saw, but he saw the ur-clouds... they're all the same conceptually. I've posted <strong>perhaps-undermined</strong> clouds here because they seemed worthwhile in their context (I was chasing a <strong>Cheap Shot</strong> when significance popped up). I wish we had more overcast days, so I wouldn't be distracted by skys. I included clouds in weaker context last weekend and have nothing to show for it.</p>

<p>The lawyer (snake) is one of many (non-snakes) who have described professional practice, clientele, and style in some detail (few litigators, mostly business/estate advisors). I happened to mention him to someone who works with him, was told that he is as personable as necessary and "hard." I did find a spot of nostalgic perhaps-weakness in him, which I doubt he shares commonly. How to deal with this photographically? That's what I want to do. It'd be a tight portrait, or series of them...<strong>undermined</strong> somehow (and I'd hope he'd enjoy that)..or an inconsequential disappointment. I'd like to forget the snake metaphor before I photograph him.</p>

<p>I absolutely disbelieve that any photographs are made from anyone's subconscious or "spontaneously." Decisionmaking can seem instantaneous and spontaneity can be pretended but <em>they are always complex</em>, even if the click takes a microsecond. </p>

<p>We may not be conscious of each click's motives but IMO that unawareness measures/defines lack of self-awareness. Minor White, who sat za-zen and subsequently became involved with a highly methodical, non-meditative, authoritarian system (Gurdjieff/Ouspensky), seems to me first to have tried (striven...anti-zen) to <strong>inject a sense of numinous</strong> in photographs (eg of rocks), accomplishing more in his later, literally-staged photos of actors, and even more in his teaching (involving hypnosis). I don't think meditation was as important to White's life work as was psychology and his personal quests (re authority and sexual identity). <a href="http://www.gurdjieff.org/ouspensky.htm">http://www.gurdjieff.org/ouspensky.htm</a></p>

<p>It seems uncommon for photographers to be honest with themselves (this thread's inhabitants seem unusually honest).</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Hmm, are we gonna get eggs with this waffle, or what...? :) Golden ones, perhaps...? :) Just be careful with that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden_Eggs">goose</a>, folks... :)</p>

<p>"Ideal" is a word that points to something that can or might be embodied in the world. But it's thread, a splinter, a shard, it's not a fleshed out whole, so that from which it came (whatever was in mind when the word "ideal" or the particular ideal was conceptualized) is made up of much else than what was meant by "ideal."</p>

<p>Also, I don't think verbal ideals equate to pictorial ideals. The former derive from the latter, not vice versa and to do a round trip -- a double-conversion -- is to degrade the kernel of whatever it is that one is trying to get at. The pictorial ideal is much fuller, more spacious, more extra-dimensional, fleshy, temperamental than is or can be the verbal pointer that tries to indicate it. I think that pictorial ideals are about space; ground, atmosphere and light -- combined with where you stand, both literally and figuratively.</p>

<p>If iconic images are unsatisfactory, I would suggest that they are either simply bad pictures (regardless of their idealism) or -- even if you made the pictures yourself -- they are disconnected or discontinuous from your own ideal space or standpoint and so are not (your) ideal at all. They're somebody else's ideal, not yours.</p>

<p>I don't know if the Ideal is filled with darkness or with light. Perhaps it's to be found somewhere in the middle. Not too complex and not too simple either but standing firmly like a rock somewhere on the middle ground, untouched by goals to pull it in either one direction. The majestic landscape photographed is not quite the majestic landscape, it's a dilution of it, however masterly photographed. And in turn the majestic landscape itself is not quite the Ideal but a dilution of it, just a mere physical representation of something that goes beyond the physical, however zen-masterly it's perceived. </p>

 

<p><strong>Gerry--</strong></p>

<p>Luckily for me I haven't been photographing long enough to have found many limitations in the medium, though I've overcome many I think were my own. You're not the first photographer I've heard mention sculpture (architecture has come up as well). I'm sure there's something significant to it. For now, I'm happy to seek depth, dimension, and texture in my photographs.</p>

<p><strong>Luis--</strong></p>

<p>"Almost anything can be/is liberating, limiting or both. It depends on how one looks at it." -- Luis G</p>

<p><!--StartFragment-->When I said "I don't think a lot of people realize that the notion of complete spontaneity . . . can actually be quite limiting in itself," I was looking at it within the context of those hard-nosed reactions in the other thread to someone else's search for an ideal, a sought for purity in his photographs, and very directed and specific intentions (which unfortunately he made seem, at least to an extent, like it "should" be a goal for others). Responding so immediately and with such venom and with such a mob mentality is a lot more limiting than the pursuit of what very well may be an unattainable ideal. </p>

<p>As a matter of fact, I'm not sure "unattainable" isn't part of my own definition of "ideal" and that aspect of ideals may be what draws me to them and what also makes me want to undermine and personalize them. </p>

<p><strong>Pnina--</strong></p>

<p>Can you talk more specifically about the personal individual truths you try to communicate.</p>

<p><strong>John--</strong></p>

<p>You've brought White to my attention before and I appreciate your mentioning the significance of his staged photos, a point I was getting at in my earlier response to Matt about affectation and genuineness.</p>

<p><strong>Julie--</strong></p>

<p>Your last paragraph has opened a lot of doors for me. Most importantly, it makes a significant connection which I hadn't thought of before between the two senses of Ideal I've been thinking of. That is, the Ideals that I stick to, my ideals, the ones I consciously craft for myself as goals, and things that have become idealized or iconized by culture.</p>

<p>I don't see how considering together verbal and pictorial ideals degrades anything. I don't agree either that verbal ideals (if by that you mean conceptual ideals) derive from pictorial ones. How does a concept of God or a belief in the sanctity of life, for example, derive from a pictorial ideal?</p>

<p>Indeed, if we continue to use the sky as an example, or the cross, the Ideal they represent are definitely somebody else's as they are already embedded in culture (or nature) when we arrive on the scene. Nevertheless, they take on individual meanings and personal associations. One has their own Ideals, yes, but the notions of icon and Ideal also have an aspect of universality, and so are dependent on some public agreement (even if that agreement is tacit). In this sense, the Ideal has to be someone else's ideal as well. So I approach the unsatisfactoriness of iconic images differently from you. Given that, for me, there is this sense in which Ideals and idealized symbols necessitate shared understanding, these are not undermined because they may be somebody else's. They have to be somebody else's. These are undermined by questioning, personalizing, maybe even damaging. The Ideals I have set for myself (as goals) are my own, though I'd still suggest even most of those come from elsewhere, I don't think them up out of whole cloth. But what a culture idealizes is based on what we share, so <em>separating</em> ourselves while recognizing the shared aspect, the aspect almost beyond our control, is the act of defiance(?) I may be talking about.</p>

<p>"The majestic landscape photographed is not quite the majestic landscape, it's a dilution of it, however masterly photographed." --Phylo</p>

<p>Why dilution? Why not augmentation or even a new creation? Seems to me the landscape photographed has the potential to be any of these. In practice, I'm with you. Most often I find landscapes photographed dilutions.</p>

<p>"the majestic landscape itself is not quite the Ideal but a dilution of it, just a mere physical representation of something that goes beyond the physical" --Phylo</p>

<p>For me, the landscape itself is physical. It is what it is. "Majestic" comes along and we start representing to ourselves that the landscape itself goes beyond the physical. Our idealization of it, as you say, goes beyond the physical so we tend to start seeing it and thinking of it as a physical representation of something greater. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Yes, just like you and I and everyone else is physical, and being that we are what we are nothing but 'skin and bones'. But those skin and bones, our bodies, represent something that goes beyond the physical, something that the photographer often want's to reveal, the mind in the brain, the thoughts behind the eyes, something more of an ideal perhaps...<br /> I don't see this being any different in a landscape. A landscape is full of life, physical and real. Life that represents something behind it, perhaps pure cosmic chance, perhaps something more deliberate, but in any case something that went before. For me a landscape ( majestic or not ) doesn't represent itself, it represents something else, just like a person doesn't quite represent flesh, skin and bones. But in the end, that is what is literally photographed, the physical. I see the photograph itself as a dilution ( of a landscape, face, body,...), not meaning on a scale from positive to negative, but more in a way of more restricted acces to the ideal or search for it behind the physical because of the very absence of it in the photograph, further away from the original 'formula'. While the ideal might not be about the physical ( just like a photograph doesn't need to be ) I think the physical is always a representation of it, of this ideal ( light or dark ). Connecting to it true a photograph is connecting to it true a ' dilution ', making any notion or acces to this ideal even harder to obtain, not less interesting.</p>

<p>Phylo--</p>

<p>Cool. Yours is different from my way of experiencing photography. As a photographer, what I want to reveal is in the photograph, not represented by the photograph. Plato used to say that a drawing (no cameras back then) was thrice removed from reality because what we see is a "mere" representation of what is real and what we draw is a "mere" representation of what we see. Not my way of thinking.</p>

<p>My photographs are realities. I don't see them as representations, though they may use representation to be what they are.</p>

<p>I don't think the mind is in the brain.</p>

<p>"a person doesn't quite represent flesh, skin and bones. But in the end, that is what is literally photographed, the physical." --Phylo</p>

<p>I don't think that is what is literally photographed any more than that is what is literally there. If, in fact, the person is more than the flesh, skin, and bones then that is what the photograph may successfully go after. If there are intangibles, then that is precisely what the photograph is capturing, through the combinations of flesh, skin, bones, perspective, light, thickness of atmosphere, focus, dynamics. I don't think photographs have limited access. I actually often think they have more access because of their ability to isolate and frame, which is much harder to have when the distractions of our normal wider view are at hand.</p>

<p>Fred,it is a heavy load .... But I will try in brief</p>

<p>"Decision making can seem instantaneous and spontaneity can be pretended but <em>they are always complex</em>, even if the click takes a microsecond. "</p>

<p>I think it is very accurate John .</p>

<p>I think "ideal" is more a thought a spiritual need, it is something artists strive to achieve as an expression of their inner world. It is like a "self portrait". What I mean is each of us has the same face organs , but they are still different in size, shapes, colors and relation (of the organs to each other.), so is the inner world which is so different in many aspects ,we are all experiencing joy, sadness , pains,but in different reactions .The visual arts enable the artist to create his own thoughts and feelings about life as he perceive them.</p>

<p>My aim while creating is to be honest with myself, to express as accurately as I can what I want to say. It is a process, a long one, a way that never ends a goal to enter as deep to my roots of existence as possible, ,what I have accumulated and want to communicate with others, a search for an ideal that pushes me to try again and again to say it in my own way, to feel ( while in the process) that I have achieved a good "station" of my personal, individual self,something that will exceed my mundane existence. Again not easy to get to, and more so expressing it in English....;-))</p>

<p>My photos mediate between something I looked for (or stumbled across), recognized, worked to convey and something received by the viewer.<br>

I don't think my photo lives at the end of a process, it's in the middle somewhere.<br>

My mind (imagination, "creativity," stream-of-consciousness") didn't originate that process. I simply work within my own frame of reference ("ideals"), notice, participate, adjust, edit, and present.</p>

<p>"My mind (imagination, "creativity," stream-of-consciousness") didn't originate that process." --John Kelly</p>

<p>I agree. It's not like I start with a blank slate or that whatever I create is <em>ex nihilo</em>. What's in the middle somewhere, for me, is me. I inherit, biologically and culturally -- whether it be genes, traits, some habits, rituals, artistic heritage and canons, or some ideals. I live in a world. Those establish a context and set up the tension between working from within the context and breaking free of it. Sometimes the freedom is so complete that the context seems left behind. Rare.</p>

<p>Fred, yes, the Plato reference comes close to what I meant to say and for me it does work, with the emphasis that "removed from reality " isn't to be understood as anything lesser. </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"As a photographer, what I want to reveal is in the photograph, not represented by the photograph"</p>

</blockquote>

<p> But do you mean by that also that that what you want to reveal was already there in the very first moment of capture, before the actual photograph? Or has the photograph rather become that what you wanted to reveal, the way you visualized it as the ideal ? What I want to reveal is also in the photograph but not necessarily in what was photographed, hence the photograph being / becoming a representation.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Fred...not only did I not initiate the process, <em>my photograph isn't at the end of the process</em>...</p>

<p> </p>

<p>before discussing this any further <a href="../street-documentary-photography-forum/00TqLG">this</a> might be of interest to you. Both are very interesting to say the least.</p>

<p><!--StartFragment--><strong>John--</strong></p>

<p>I purposely didn't address "my photograph isn't at the end of the process..." because I want to think more about that. My first thoughts are that it is the product of a process and that a process also continues with the photograph itself. Whether there's a different process begun with the photograph or the same process continues is probably not critical. But if it's the same process, the photograph marks a strong turning point. The photograph seems pivotal.</p>

<p><strong><strong><strong>Phy</strong><strong>lo--</strong></strong></strong></p>

<p>I don't think of the final image as necessarily representing something that was at the scene, though that may be one of the building blocks. (The photo may even take on much of its character in post processing.) I am expressing or visualizing something (new) using the photographic medium.</p>

<p>The picture, for me, when I take it, is not about what I see or saw. It's about what I am going to see: the photograph. A photograph for me would be much more a presentation than a representation, and I don't even really like the word "presentation." I keep coming back to "expression" and "visualization."</p>

<p>A very mundane moment may translate to a poignant photograph, not because the photograph represents the moment, but because the photographic process -- the way light is dealt with by the technology and the way it translates to a flat surface, perhaps the results of the very long exposure I set, the camera movement I instigate, even the lighting conditions under which I view the photograph -- transforms.</p>

<p>My relationship and the relationship of the viewer may often be more to the process and the photograph than it is to the "reality" of the moment.</p>

<p>Bresson, in the clip Ton linked to (thanks, Ton!) talks about photography as "the recognition of the <em>significance</em> of an event." That significance goes way deeper than representing.</p>

<p>Suzanne Langer on <em>significance </em>(she uses music as her example but extends it to other mediums and Bresson seems to have used the word in the way Langer describes it): "The real power of music lies in the fact that it can be 'true' to the life of feeling in a way that language cannot; for its <em>significant</em> forms have that <strong>ambivalence of content</strong> . . . a transient play of contents. It can articulate feelings without becoming wedded to them. The assignment of meanings is a shifting, kaleidoscopic play . . ."</p>

<p>I think "representation" suggests the kind of weddedness to content that both Bresson and Langer would challenge.</p>

<p>Bresson goes on to talk about photographic "discovery which can mold us but also be affected by us." For me, we affect not only what we photograph by photographing it. We also affect the outcome of the photographic process. That, to me, is different from representing.</p>

<p>This seems to bring the discussion back to icons and ideals, which I view as more passive since they are passed on, inherited culturally. To "affect" the discoveries, as Bresson puts it, is not to sit idly or ideally by but to <em>cause</em>. That may be akin to the undermining or defiance of ideals that some of us are talking about.</p>

<p>As I said, "what I want to reveal is in the photograph." What I want to reveal is whatever may reveal itself to the viewer because he takes it personally enough to apply it to himself. That's what "significance" means. It's a non-specific "transfer" of feeling. What I want to reveal is in there but only the viewer will know what it is for himself. I have not represented or dictated that to him though I've provided him a means for active discovery.</p>

<p>The key to the effective use of iconic symbols, as evidenced by all the artists cited, is <em>fluency</em> .</p>

<p>Otherwise, it's gracelessly forced, incongruous and ends up a lumpy conglomerate.</p>

<p><em>[Fred G]"...drawn to and moved by the Ideal when I can either <strong>undermine </strong> ...or personalize ... I've always been drawn to Magritte's use of the blue sky, Hosoe's use of a rose, Scorcese's use of crosses, John Ford's use of graves and cemeteries" </em></p>

<p><em><br /> </em></p>

<p><em> <br /> </em></p>